


Taijitu

by copperbadge



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Loneliness, M/M, Piano, completion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-21
Updated: 2006-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-20 15:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Isn't it enough that you show me what the world is?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taijitu

Music wasn't often played in the Ohtori household. Kyouya's mother had played the piano, and so there was a piano in a distant sunroom that Kyouya's father never went to. Neither did his brothers or sister, who had much more vivid memories of her than Kyouya himself did. The only time anyone touched it was when Tamaki came to the house, but then the room filled up with music.

Kyouya would be there, of course, standing at the piano and watching Tamaki play. Slowly, as the sound drifted out, Kyouya's eldest brother would appear silently, sometimes with hospital records still tucked under one arm. His other brother was never far behind, as his study-room was nearby. If his sister was visiting, she would come too, and sometimes bring her husband to hear the music. 

At first they would stand outside or in the doorway, suddenly shy in the presence of an Outsider, of someone who played their mother's piano. Then they would slip in, one by one, moving to the couch or the windows to hear better. Once in a while one of them would cry quietly, and the others would pretend not to see. Kyouya always faintly resented their presence, but he wouldn't have driven them off for all the world. Kyouya's father, never home in the afternoons, possibly didn't even know about the concerts his children attended in the distant sunroom, but they were the only time any of them understood that they were family. 

Today, however, his brothers were out with his father and his sister was holidaying in Hokkaido. For a few hours, Kyouya was alone in the house with the servants and Tamaki and the music. 

"I could teach you to play," Tamaki offered, fingers resting lightly on the keyboard. Kyouya was studying the music, well-educated enough to understand it even if he didn't play himself. 

"I wouldn't enjoy it," Kyouya said absently, watching the way Tamaki's wrist arched just slightly, the barest protrusion of bone skewing the curve. 

"How do you know?" Tamaki asked. Kyouya, remembering the world that had opened itself up to him with Tamaki's arrival in his life, considered this. Tamaki saw his thoughts and slid off the bench, gesturing for him to take a seat.

"This is Middle C," he said, lifting Kyouya's right hand and placing his thumb on one pale key. His left hand slipped over Kyouya's left shoulder, pointing to the music. "This note. Outside of the clef, with the line through it. Each note rises from Middle C."

His fingers pressed down on top of Kyouya's, playing up to G, one note at a time. 

"The lower clef descends from Middle C," he continued, lifting Kyouya's left hand to place it next to his right. Kyouya took a sudden, sharp breath as Tamaki's hands slid around his wrists and supported them. "This is the proper way to hold your hands when you play."

Tamaki's thumb grazed the inside of Kyouya's wrist, rubbing gently below the heel of his palm. Their faces were next to each other, and Kyouya could smell the rose-soap Tamaki used. His finger twitched, and a stray note emerged. 

"Head up," Tamaki continued, releasing his left wrist and raising his own left hand to tip up Kyouya's chin. "Don't look at the keys while you play, look at the music."

"It's too complicated," Kyouya mumbled. "I can't play this."

"Not yet," Tamaki agreed. "You have to start slow, like everything."

His hand slid down Kyouya's throat, drifting across the open collar of his shirt. He plucked one button open. Kyouya's hand twitched again, and his left hand slipped off the keys entirely. Tamaki's fingers spread across his chest, over his heart. 

"This is where the music comes from," Tamaki said, as Kyouya lifted his left hand to curl his fingers in Tamaki's soft yellow hair. "That's why your brothers cry when I play. They miss this."

His fingers tapped on Kyouya's skin for emphasis.

"What about me?" Kyouya asked. 

"Don't worry," Tamaki said. "I have yours."

Kyouya smiled a little. "Does that line work?"

"I don't know. I've never tried it before," Tamaki answered, laughing. "Does it?"

Kyouya turned his head and drifted his lips across Tamaki's cheek, searching for his mouth. Tamaki obligingly leaned in, still laughing, and caught Kyouya's lower lip between his teeth. 

"Guess so," he said, grasping Kyouya's shirt and pulling him upright. The piano bench clattered over between them but Kyouya stepped over it gracefully, following Tamaki backwards until the other boy was pressed against one of the windows, both hands on Kyouya's shoulders. It was warm in the sunlight and the dust danced around them as they kissed. Kyouya couldn't breathe. 

"It's always been you," Tamaki said, letting go of his shoulders only to wrap his arms around Kyouya and hold him firmly against him, firmly in the warm sunlight. "I knew it would be you."

"How?" Kyouya asked, kissing him again before he could answer. He bent his head slightly and nicked Tamaki's throat with his teeth. 

"That tickles!" Tamaki laughed again. "Darkness shows where light is. You can't have music without silence to fill."

"What the hell does that mean?" Kyouya said, his forehead knocking against the glass as he sucked gently on the bite. 

"I fill your silence," Tamaki said. "You show me my light."

"Fucking poet," Kyouya replied. Tamaki bit his earlobe, one hand sliding down to clutch his hip. 

"Nihilist."

"Romantic idiot!"

"Pragmatic bastard!" 

Kyouya raised his head and laughed, the way he only laughed (he knew this) when Tamaki was the cause. 

"Isn't it enough that you show me what the world is?" Tamaki asked, and Kyouya almost flinched away. Tamaki's eyes clouded. "What is it?"

"I was going to say the same thing, that's all," Kyouya whispered. 

"There you have it," Tamaki said. "Fate, then."

Kyouya felt lighter than air, suddenly, as though he were rising up out of his own body. Looking down, he saw himself kiss Tamaki, not some teenage boy's first kiss and not a passionate kiss at all but something a man did, the act of someone who was in love. 

Tamaki's head bowed against his own and from his place slightly above either of them Kyouya saw their heads together, black hair and pale golden yellow, blending together in the sunlight until they formed a perfect circle, a _taijitu_.

"I can see your thoughts," Tamaki said, and Kyouya tumbled back into his body, not an unpleasant experience at all.

"Can you?" he asked, still finding it hard to breathe. 

"Yes," Tamaki said gravely. "You're thinking you would like to go to a peasant's cheap-movie-palace with me tonight and have popcorn like the commoners do."

"King of idiots," Kyouya said. Tamaki grinned at him. Kyouya held tight to the _taijitu_ and wondered, idly, what Tamaki's mouth would taste like when he'd been eating popcorn.

"I _will_ teach you to play," Tamaki said to him as they left the sunroom and walked through the cold, echoing hallways of the Ohtori estate. 

"I look forward to the lessons," Kyouya replied.

END

  
_The taijitu is a traditional symbol representing the forces of Yin and Yang -- darkness and brightness -- in perfect balance._


End file.
